


ain't never sung before

by toomanyhometowns



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Veterinarians, Don't copy to another site, Kinda, Other, ace/aro spectrum Wash, non-binary Maine, they work at an animal shelter and the author doesn't know anything about animal shelters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26447665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomanyhometowns/pseuds/toomanyhometowns
Summary: thought-42 asked:[animal shelter au+non binary gender], for Wash/Tucker or Wash/Maine[in which Maine's imposing build is useful for handling large animals, and Wash notices]
Relationships: The Meta | Agent Maine/Agent Washington
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: tumblrfic exodus





	ain't never sung before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thought](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/gifts).



> Stage of Quar where I'm uploading old fic from tumblr! Title is from Corb Lund's [Talkin' Veterinarian Blues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MPJifwOW-U), lyrics [here](https://www.metrolyrics.com/talkin-veterinarian-blues-lyrics-corb-lund.html).

Maine works at the shelter Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. 

Wash, as far as they can tell, works every single blessed day of the week. He's serious, focused, and apologetic without being horrified when he misgenders Maine the first week they show up at the shelter.

"Oh, sorry. My bad," he says, and that's the end of the last time he slips up as far as Maine knows.

Maine shrugs, but doesn't say it was okay, or say not to worry about it. They've spent long enough asserting that these things are important, no way they're backing down just because a somber-looking dog-walker fucks up.

They keep busy. There's the shelter three days of the week, and the other four they spend out in the country, going around to the ranches and farms as needed to look in on people's horses. The work is fantastic—Maine's always loved horses, wishes they could've spent more time with them other than just seeing what makes them tick. The work is also very… well, butch. Very manly. Maine's lost track of the number of times a well-meaning farmer's called them "big fella," but they haven't given up on correcting them yet.

"Not a fella," they say, but they'd learned to be soft-spoken when they'd been young and too tall, always too damn _tall_ , so it passes through the farmer's ears without leaving a ripple. Besides, there's a horse with a choke that needs taking care of, and Maine can respect those priorities.

It turns out that Wash isn't just a dog-walker, he also does pretty much everything it takes to keep the shelter running. He cleans the dogs' pens, deals with the cat litter, does all the licensing paperwork, sets up the volunteer schedule, helps the groomer, ensures they never run out of treats (for the animals) or coffee (for the humans). It also turns out that he knows how to laugh, a dumb staccato heh-heh-heh that connects somewhere in Maine's brain to make their eyes crinkle without their permission.

When Maine first started working at the shelter, Wash sat in on their interview. Well, Wash trailed them through the shelter, acquiring dogs as he went, presumably listening in on Carolina asking Maine, "What's your experience with smaller animals? We don't get a lot of goats or horses here." Maine wasn't sure if they were supposed to be impressing just Carolina, or if the person leashed to a full dozen dogs mattered, too.

The next day, Wash was waiting in their new office with his arms full of adolescent cats.

"I hope you like spaying and neutering," was Maine's official welcome-to-the-team from him. "Because our last vet left a month ago and there's kind of a back-log."

"Sure," they said. "Let's go."

They noticed Wash's shoulders sink a fraction of an inch. "Thank you," he said. "I can scrub up if you need a hand with anything, just say the word."

Since then, Maine's noticed a lot about Wash. They've noticed that he tries to scare away new volunteers, and half the time he succeeds. They've noticed him practically swoon when Maine lifts Theresa the Saint-Bernard onto the scale (and no, they didn't preen at all when that happened). They've noticed that he takes allergy medication every four hours with military precision.

"You said on your CV that you took the MCATs," Wash says a month or so in. He taps his heel against the wall absent-mindedly. "Did you want to be a doctor?"

Maine did a semester of med school, and the memories that stand out the best are anatomy lab, listening to everything split into twos and feeling wrong about the answers they wrote on every quiz.

They shrug. "Wasn't me."

"Hm, yeah," Wash says, and Maine gets the feeling he's filing this information carefully away.

Wash finds cleaning tasks to let him be in the same room as them at work. He brings extra cookies for them by accident. He flushes when they stop by to cuddle the cats. Maine's not an idiot by a long stretch. What they don't understand is why Wash doesn't make a fucking _move_ already.

They think about it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, weekends, when they're treating a colt for some long barbed-wire scratches down his flank, or helping a mare after a tough foaling. If Wash actually said something, they think they'd be okay with it. They're not immune to how hard he works, or to the passion that he tucks away under pragmaticism, or to the dark curve of his lips when he smiles.

In all honesty, Maine's pretty close to making a move themself when Wash says, "Is it okay if I talk with you after work?"

"Yeah," Maine says. They smile and nod to Wash's hair, which is bright red this week. "Nice hair."

"Oh," Wash blinks, hands jittery on Deedee the turtle. "You too. I mean, you shave it but uh, nice skull." He looks horrified with himself. "I'll just—take Deedee back out, talk to you later, I'm sorry."

Maine waits until Wash is gone to laugh.

After work, Maine meets Wash in the front room. They sit down on one of the stained brown chairs, and wait for Wash to take the other. He sits and immediately his feet start tracing the tiles in the floor. From the shoulders up, though, he looks steely-determined and serious.

Maine wonders if this is how he usually asks people out. It seems like disproportionate anxiety to them, but hey, what do they know.

"So. Hi," Wash says, and Maine wants to throw him a bone.

"Hey," they say, and the automatic smile that pulls from Wash is gratifying to say the least.

"I don't do this," _often_ , Maine expects, but Wash ends it there. "I really just… I don't do this. So I'm probably going to be bad at everything here, and let me know if I'm fucking up, because I don't want to."

He pauses there like he's waiting for Maine to react, so Maine nods in what they hope is a supportive fashion.

"I never really liked men or women; I'm not into people, in general," Wash explains flatly. "So I didn't prepare any contingencies for this sort of situation. But you're… you're better than people in general, Maine, you're better and I really _like_ you, and Carolina said I should—" he cuts himself off, eyes bugging out. "Forget that, Carolina didn't say anything. Do you want to go to a movie? Or dinner? With me?" His voice is squeaky by the end.

Maine's going to get back to the Carolina thing soon, because now they're curious. As for the rest of it… It makes a sort of sense for the Wash that Maine holds in their head. Wash tries to hard to be self-contained and self-possessed, and Maine isn't shocked that that extends to containing and possessing himself in all aspects of his life, including the romantic.

For now, they say, "Yeah, sounds good." It feels inadequate to leave it at that, which isn't a feeling Maine often gets about words. They add, "You're better than people in general, too."

Maine isn't expecting the reaction that garners: Wash tucking his chin into his chest as if that'll hide his shaky grin. They like it, though.

"Wow, uh, okay," Wash says. He clears his throat. "Thank you."

Maine stands up and offers their hand to Wash. "Sure." They wait for Wash to get to his feet before tugging their twined fingers. "Let's go."


End file.
